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Waking Up White: A Book Recommendation
I have been reading and writing a lot about race lately. The Black Lives Matter movement got me going. Trump’s presidency stoked the fire of urgency. Over winter break I finished, Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving. I highly recommend this book. In fact, I wish every…
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Is there room for me? A Christmas Sermon
What follows is my sermon, “Is there room for me?” to Monmouth College at our annual Christmas Convocation based on Luke 2: 1-14. Traditionally, in a Protestant worship service, all the children are invited forward…
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Dear Church: Please ask me about my college students.
The Presbyterian Outlook recently published my advice to the church on how to reach young adults and college students. Follow this link to read the article: Dear Church: Please ask me about my college students.
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Tired of Talking about Privilege
Last Sunday, during a program at my college about how to create needed social change, I observed a few of the white students tuning out. One fell asleep. Another started texting a friend. Another tried to pay attention, but her eyes kept wandering to the floor, the window and the faces in the room other…
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Battling Resistance
Since I took yesterday off, I told myself I would sit down to write first thing this morning. Before getting to my desk, though, I did the following: Cleaned up the dirty dishes in the kitchen Got a load of laundry started Set my kids clothes out for the day Made the beds Scrolled through…
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My First Readathon
I thrive on challenges with set deadlines. So when my friend Marcie told me she was participating in Dewey’s 24 hour readathon this Saturday, October 21st, I wanted in! I love to read, yet never feel like I have enough time to get to all the books on my shelves, on my nightstand, piled on…
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How to Be: Thoughts about Guns and the Value of Life
I made a mistake yesterday. While waiting to catch my flight home from a board meeting, I joined a debate about gun control on a friend’s Facebook thread. I don’t typically participate in such debates via social media. Our emboldened rhetoric behind the anonymity of the computer screen is, I believe, problematic. But I was…
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Work out your own salvation
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Philippians 2:12 Salvation is forgetting about my incoming email as I run alongside my daughter, my hand barely holding the back of her bike seat, while, together, we learn to let go. Salvation is the rain-filled clouds parting at the end of a long run, revealing…
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The Blessing is Outside your Comfort Zone
“The blessing is outside your comfort zone.” I recently heard this quote on a podcast about the spiritual practice of running. But this truth extends beyond the topic of physical exercise. A month ago, I was escorted to a classroom in the men’s maximum-security prison twenty minutes from my home. I was there to teach…
Teri McDowell Ott 